


sorry there's no cake

by cresswell



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Birthday Presents, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Sad Clarke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-23
Updated: 2014-06-23
Packaged: 2018-02-05 17:35:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1826509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cresswell/pseuds/cresswell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four things Bellamy gave Clarke for her birthday, and one thing she didn't even know she wanted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sorry there's no cake

**Author's Note:**

> two fics in 24 hours?? what???

**01\. comfort**

Clarke turns eighteen on Earth, lying on her back next to the dying flames of the bonfire. Everyone else is asleep inside their tents, even the adults from the Ark, and she stares up at the moon, suddenly finding herself fighting the urge to cry.

She is a girl born of stars and nebulae, and it seems so cruel and unfair that she does not get to spend this monumental day amongst them. Instead, she is on Earth with blood on her hands and a whole camp's wellbeing on her shoulders. She may only be turning eighteen now, but she has been grown up for a long time.

If she presses her eyes closed tight enough, she can pretend she is lying between her mother and father with Wells at her feet. Her mother isn't too far away, only behind a flap of fabric, and Wells is close enough too, under layers of dirt.

But her father's lifeless body is floating around in the galaxy, Clarke's heart stretched taut with the distance and the sudden, overwhelming sadness that is filling up her chest. She closes her eyes against the stars, but it's no use: they paint the inside of her eyelids. They are all she's ever known.

She hears footsteps on the dirt and wills her body to remain still. It's easier for her to feign sleep than it is for her to speak, and she thinks maybe that should worry her.

She tries not to jump when a blanket is spread over her, the fabric rough and scratchy, undoubtedly one of the ones that fell with them from the sky. A hand nudges at her shoulder gently, the warmth of it seeping through her shirtsleeve. "Come on, Princess. Time for bed."

 _Bellamy_. She opens her eyes. His hair is as dark as the sky around him, his teeth white against the shade of his skin. He leans back from her automatically, his hand moving away from her shoulder. He holds it out to her instead, an offering. "Your mom'll kill me if I let you sleep out here."

"How do you know I won't kill you for waking me up?"

He merely raises an eyebrow, watching in quiet amusement as she huffs out a sigh and sits up. "I know you weren't really asleep."

"Worth a try," Clarke replies, staggering to her feet, heavy with fatigue and lingering sadness. She wraps the blanket around her shoulders like a cloak, feeling so small next to him. "Thanks," she says a little awkwardly, rubbing the fabric of the blanket between her fingers to get the blood flowing in them. "For the blanket."

He inclines his head, as graceful and respectful as ever, and holds out his hand as if to say, _after you._

 

 

**02\. warmth**

She wakes up with Octavia and Jasper leaning over, both of their faces pale and clearly terrified. "Clarke," the other girl cries in relief at seeing her eyes open. "Oh, thank god."

"What?" Clarke says, surprised that her voice is raspy. She blames it on only getting an hour sleep, tops. "What's-"

"You're not warm enough," Jasper says, wringing his hands in front of him. "We didn't know what to do."

Clarke narrows her eyes, flicking her gaze between the two in suspicion. "What _did_ you do?"

"I slapped you," Octavia says matter-of-factly, immediately looking guilty for doing so. "We had to get you awake and we knew we couldn't dump water on you, because you'd only get colder."

"Where's my mom?"

"She and Councilman Kane headed back to the Ark to get others," Jasper replies. Some of the color is returning to his face, but he still looks badly shaken. "Octavia, her lips are still blue."

Clarke frowns, trying stupidly to see her own lips, but all that happens is she strains her eyes and hurts her head. The mattress is dipping suddenly and then Octavia is there, looking at her guiltily. "Body heat," she says in explanation. After considering for a moment, Clarke nods, curling up. Octavia wraps her arms around her, rubbing her back awkwardly, letting out some laughter into her hair. "Sorry. This is majorly weird."

"It's okay," Clarke says, surprised that she's able to speak at all with the way her teeth are chattering. The cold is finally seeping into her nerve endings and she nearly gasps with the intensity of it, Octavia's skin feeling almost feverish against hers. "C-Can't feel m-my fingers," she chokes out.

Octavia takes a sharp breath against her hair, rubbing her back more frantically, and snuggles closer to her. It's not even uncomfortable anymore; it's desperate and she is so cold and how did this even _happen?_ She wasn't even outside that long-

"O," a new voice says, and Clarke instantly recognizes it as Bellamy's. "Lincoln's here. He says-"

He cuts off abruptly, and even though Clarke can't see him from where her face is pressed into Octavia's chest, she can tell he's probably squinting and tilting his head in confusion at the scene in front of him.

"Clarke is too cold," she hears Jasper explaining in the background, sounding like a doctor breaking bad news. "Octavia thought body heat would-"

"She's right," Bellamy replies, voice rough. A moment later, Octavia is pulled gently away, her brother's hand on her shoulder. She squawks in protest, her hands grabbing at Clarke, but Bellamy moves her firmly away.

Clarke makes a strangled sound, curling desperately into the warm part of the bed Octavia's body had just been, and suddenly Bellamy's hand is on her shoulder. "O, go talk to Lincoln. Jas, I got it here. Help Spacewalker gather more blankets."

She is dimly aware of the footfalls heading away from her, her fingers knotted and pressed against the valley over her heart, trying to get the feeling back into them. Bellamy sits on the edge of the mattress, glancing at her over his shoulder. "I'm going to get in the bed now, okay?"

Clarke nods frantically. Truth be told, at this point she would have willingly yanked him in there with her. He climbs under the blankets- there's a whole pile of them on top of her, like a fortress- and touches her arm, feather-light at first. She makes a noise between a gasp and a moan at how warm his palm is and then he's moving into her space. He wraps his arms around her, his palms covering the entire expanse of her back beneath her shirt, and she wiggles her hands under his own shirt, feeling the hard lines of his abdomen.

"You give all your girls this level of attention?" She finally manages after they've settled in, nestled together like rocks at the bottom of a stream, her leg hiked over his hips to keep him pressed tight against her.

He laughs at that, the smile pretty on his face, and when she's this close to him it's impossible not to admire the crinkles by his eyes and the freckles dotting his face like constellations. "Nah. Just you."

 

 

**03\. company**

By the time her mother returns from the Ark, she's gotten her blood flowing again, thanks to Bellamy. She's bundled up in more than her fair share of clothing, shirts and jackets layered on until she can hardly move her arms, at Jasper's insistence. Things between her and Abby are still strained and she can't look at her without seeing her father's twisted face as he got sucked into black nothingness, so she chooses to go on guard at the back of the wall instead of helping her mother in the medical tent.

Miller's around her somewhere but he keeps his distance, having always been more respectful of privacy and space than Bellamy. Her gun is sitting across her lap and she's so preoccupied with tying wildflowers together that she doesn't hear the soft footfalls until there's a streak of movement in her peripheral vision. She scrambles up, clutching her gun to her chest tightly. But it's just Bellamy.

"Boom," he says. "You're dead."

She'd reply with a quip of her own, but then she notices the rope in his hand. It's connected to an animal, one with beautiful black hair and dark, steady eyes. Clarke feels her body go taut with excitement, subconsciously bouncing on the balls of her feet. "Where did you get a _horse?"_

Bellamy smiles, reaching out to pat the horse's neck. "Killed her owner in the woods." Catching the look on her face, he waves his hand dismissively. "I'm fine. I had my hatchet in him before he could even string an arrow."

Clarke frowns at the image, but doesn't protest.

"Anyway," Bellamy goes on, now pointedly not looking at her. "I figured it'd be cruel to leave her. And I happen to know someone who likes horses quite a lot."

"I do," Clarke replies, dropping her gun in the grass. Bellamy protests, but she ignores him, moving carefully forward with her hand outstretched. The horse nuzzles her palm gently, its lips soft and fuzzy, and nibbles her skin with her lips. Clarke giggles at the sensation. 

She catches Bellamy looking at her out of the corner of her eyes, his expression soft but otherwise unreadable. She raises her eyebrows at him, keeping her gaze on the horse's silky hair as she pets its long face. "You're really going to let me keep her?"

He rolls his eyes. "I didn't bring her back just to taunt you with her. I'm not that cruel."

"Could've fooled me," Clarke replies, her voice dry, and she sees Bellamy smile towards the ground. He walks off towards the wall, dead leaves crunching beneath his feet, when she turns around. "Hey."

He looks over his shoulder at her, humming in response.

She gives him a grin, feeling her horse nuzzle at her hair, and says, "Thanks."

He smirks and starts to walk away again. Over his shoulder, he calls, "Every princess needs her horse."

 

 

**04\. sight**

Clarke successfully avoids her mother for the entirety of her birthday, and even though she feels completely disconnected and lonely, she thinks that's better than having her mother fretting over her and trying to be maternal. She wants to be by herself today anyway, and she eats her dinner in the area of camp that the light from the fire doesn't quite reach, her sketchbook resting on her knee.

For a while now she's been drawing other kids in camp. It had started with Wells, when she drew him lying on his back with a bouquet of flowers on his chest, the day they'd buried him. Then she had drawn Finn the way he had looked the morning after, a time she only thinks about when she's curled up in dull numbness in the dark of her tent. And then she drew Jasper, and Octavia, and Miller...

She feels such overwhelming affection for all of them, even the ones she hardly knows. At this point she knows that it would tear her in half if she had to watch any more of them die. But she also knows that's unavoidable.

At least this way, she can give them a sliver of immortality: Raven caught the day she fell to Earth with her arms outstretched, Roma with her intricate braids, Monty wound up in his blanket. She runs her fingers over the edges of the sketches, smiling to herself, and feels her heart tug almost painfully.

A shadow looms over her and she quickly shuts her book, moving her tin plate on top of it and peering up. She can tell right away that it's Bellamy: she'd know him from miles away. "Hey," She says, trying to stop the way her voice shakes. "What's up?"

He tilts his head at her plate, an eyebrows raised. "Not hungry?"

"Hardly ever," she replies, and it's not entirely untrue. It's hard for her to eat when she knows that Wells never will again, her father never will, Charlotte never will. "Do you need something?"

"Yeah," he says, and then, abruptly: "Is that your sketchbook?"

"Um," Clarke replies, drawing out the sound like a hum and immediately feeling stupid. "Yes. Why?"

He eases down next to her, face decidedly blank. "Can I look at it?"

She hands it over, knowing that declining won't do any good, and tries not to watch while he looks through it. Watching other people examine her art has always made her feel uncomfortable and anxious, her pulse strumming high in her throat, and it's maximized because now it's Bellamy looking through it. She watches from the corner of her eye as he flips the pages slowly, his fingers stuttering slightly when he finds the one of Charlotte. Clarke looks away, picking at her rations even though she has no intention of eating them.

"When did you draw these?"

His voice sounds strange and she leans over his shoulder to look. It's the page she used to draw him, and there are several disconnected sketches, not any full ones. She points to the one in the top left corner with a defined smirk on his face and Murphy in the background. "This is from our second day. _'Brave princess'_ ," she quotes, laughing a little to herself. "God, I hated you so much. This one is from our day trip," she continues, pointing to one of him aiming a gun. "This one-"

"What about this one?" He interjects, not impolitely, tapping his finger on the one in the center of the page. It's of him laughing, shadows making his features look sharper.

"Unity Day. Or the day before, I guess." She cocks her mouth into a grin. "You were trying to get me drunk."

"If I recall, I was trying to get you to _loosen up,_ okay," he defends, but he's laughing quietly, his fingers lingering on the paper. They lapse into silence and the uneasiness worms its way back into her chest, blooming outwards until she can feel her skin warm.

"If you're done," she says, her fingers itching to hide her book away, "I'll-"

"Why are there none of you?"

She frowns, blinking. "What do you mean?"

"In here." He waves her sketchbook, now shut, in the air for emphasis. "You've drawn pretty much everyone else, but there's not a single self portrait. Why's that?"

Clarke scratches the back of her neck, feeling a little embarrassed. "Oh, um. Well, it's because I don't know what I look like?"

Half of his lips curl up in a smirk, his eyebrows rising as well. "Seriously? How do you not know?"

She feels her shoulders squaring, the warmth now blooming across her face. "Well, I don't know! There aren't any mirrors down here or anything-"

"Clarke," he says, exasperated, rolling his eyes. "Water is reflective, you know."

"Of _course_ I know that, idiot," she cries, whacking his chest lightly, and he laughs. "But it's not like I have a lot of time to spend admiring my reflection in the lake."

"But even _I_ know what I look like."

"Well I know I'm blonde, for one thing," she replies, ticking off her fingers as she lists. "Unless leftover radiation has miraculously made me a redhead. And I know I still have that damn freckle above my lip, and I'm unfortunately still shorter than just about everyone, and..." she trails off, frowning to herself.

"My god," Bellamy exhales, more a laugh than anything else. "That's all you've got? Seriously?"

She glares at him. "Alright then, what _do_ I look like?"

He strokes his chin like he has to think about it, like he's not looking at her _right now_ , and hums contemplatively. "Like a princess."

She must have bloodlust written on her face because he holds up his hands in surrender, laughing in a way that makes him look younger than he is. She always forgets that he's as old as he is, probably because he always treats her like an equal. "Alright, alright. Blonde hair, check. Freckle, check. Shortness, check _and I mean that in a positive way_ ," he adds hastily when she growls in the back of her throat.

He swallows, his smile slowly disappearing. He pulls his bottom lip between his teeth in a way that makes Clarke feel all funny. "Your hair's all wavy. Not like it was the first day. And you have a cut right here," he touches his finger just above her eyebrow, and Clarke can feel now that the skin there is sensitive. "Though you probably already knew that."

"No," Clarke replies, voice much fainter than she'd like. "I didn't."

"You've got a scar along your jaw," he goes on, his eyebrows knitting as he frowns. "When did that happen?"

"When Finn and I got taken," she replies, her gaze fluttering away. "They- I called after them when they took Finn away and they cut my face."

He traces the puckered skin beneath her cheek with calloused fingers and she shivers almost violently against his hand, surprised when he doesn't make a biting remark about it. "Your hands are always bloody."

"I always have my hands in someone else's blood."

"You always look sad," he says, letting his hand fall away. "Even when you smile."

She stares at him but he's staring back, their knees pressed together. "I could say the same thing about you."

He opens his mouth like he's about to say something, maybe about the color of her eyes or the way they're too close for people who can barely tolerate each other on a good day, but then a voice is calling out their names and the moment disappears. Clarke slides away, back towards her forgotten plate of food, and when she looks over, Bellamy's face is closed back up like a wall has slid into place.

"Hi," Octavia says, sounding a little breathless, probably from running. "Um, not to worry you, but there's a horse in our camp?"

Clarke hears herself laughing before she even realizes she's doing it, her head thrown back. Bellamy's hand brushes along her thigh when he moves to stand up, and he tosses a wide grin at her as he throws his arm around his sister's shoulders. "Go get your steed, Princess."

She can hear Octavia exclaiming in a high-pitched voice that _she_ wants a horse, and she picks up her sketchbook and opens it to the page with the sketches of Bellamy on it. On impulse, she flips the page over, and starts a new drawing. It's still Bellamy, but in profile, with his hand outstretched and settled on a blonde girl's cheek.

 

 

**+1. kiss**

Clarke wakes up to something soft rubbing against her cheek. She swats at it, expecting it to be her mother or maybe even Finn, but then her hand comes in contact with soft hair and there's a huff of breath against her face. She cracks an eye open.

Her horse huffs again, clearly unimpressed.

"Sorry, horse," she mumbles, her eyes still caked mostly shut with sleep. She pats its soft nose and struggles to sit up, her eyes blowing wide when she takes in her surroundings. "Horse, _why are you in my tent?"_

Her horse blinks soulfully at her, as if to say _who, me?_

She sighs in frustration, sliding her feet into her boots and standing up. She takes her horse's lead rope in her hand and shuffles towards the opening, squinting her eyes in the morning light even though it's mostly obscured by fog. Her horse starts sniffing the grass near her tent so she drapes the rope over its silky mane, letting it wander a little ways and eat some grass.

She's eighteen, she remembers, and she mentally high-fives herself for making it the whole day without anyone saying happy birthday. She'd made her mother promise not to say anything, and if she's being honest, she's not even sure her mother remembered anyway. Not that she minds. She'd rather not have any more attention on her than necessary.

The gate creaks open, causing those on guard to grab at their guns, but then Bellamy treks through and all is well again. Clarke can tell by the way his hair is damp and curly that he's been to the lake, probably washing off as well as he could. She absentmindedly thinks he must be cold, and then immediately she realizes _she's_ cold, having stripped down to her thin shirt and her soft loose pants to sleep in. She ducks back inside her tent to grab her jacket and pull on her jeans over her light pants, and when she ducks back out again, Bellamy is patting her horse's side.

"You wishing you'd kept her for yourself?" She asks as she walks over, tugging her hair out from where it's caught beneath her jacket.

Bellamy raises an eyebrow but there's a hint of a smile on his lips. "Maybe. Has she got a name yet?"

Clarke shrugs. "Nah. I haven't put much thought into it."

Bellamy stuffs his hands in his pockets, swaying back and forth on the balls of his feet like it's a nervous tick. "I wanted to talk to you about last night."

He's looking at her in that way he's been doing lately, the way that reminds her of Wells and Finn and feels like electricity getting injected into her veins, so she averts her gaze. "What about last night?"

"I just wanted to apologize," he begins, and Clarke squeezes her eyes shut, because this is it. This is where the boy makes it sound like nothing happened, like she's a desperate, clingy girl who made up any "connection" in her head. She's prepared for him to blow it off and tell her that touching her face was a mistake, and she braces herself.

But all he says is "I hope I didn't make you uncomfortable."

Clarke opens her eyes hesitantly, one at a time, and frowns. "What?"

Bellamy shrugs, looking almost awkward, which is a word she hasn't associated with him before. "I was a little out of line, wasn't I? Looking through your sketches and- and touching you," he says, gesturing to his own jaw as if she could have forgotten.

"No," she replies, shaking her head and smiling in what she hopes is a reassuring way. "It was fine. You were fine."

"Good," he says back, giving her a smile that is much too forced to ease the awkward air that's settled between them. She settles her hand in her horse's mane, running her fingers through the knotted, tangled hair, and suddenly feels the need to assure Bellamy. Of what, she's not sure, but she starts talking before she can stop herself.

"I didn't mind or anything. It was nice, I guess. You- your hands are soft." At that, she scrunches up her nose, mentally slapping herself. "I mean, not really, but they're soft in comparison to how I thought they would feel- not that I think about your hands a lot, or anything," She adds hastily, knowing by now that her face is bright red. "I should- I'm shutting up now."

Bellamy's mouth is caught up in a grin and he's giving her that _look_ again and she thinks she is going to melt into a puddle. She really does.

"God, Clarke," he says after what feels like a millennium, running his hand through his hair. "Do you even- do you have any idea of what you do to me?"

"Embarrass you?" Clarke guesses, kicking a rock with her boot. "Yeah, well, I get that a lot-"

He steps forward and backs her up a few steps until her back is flat against their makeshift wall, a sound of surprise coming from her throat. His forehead his pressed to hers, his hands light on her hips, and he says, "God, Clarke, shut _up,"_ and then he kisses her.

Her eyes go wide when he does, his mouth so warm and a little rough against her own, and then when she decides her heart isn't going to leap out of her chest she lets her eyelids fall shut, her hands coming up to his face. The wall is cold against her back but Bellamy's chest is warm against hers, his hands knotted in her hair as he kisses her deeper, a low sound coming from his throat. He tastes like mint leaves and rainwater and she wriggles impossible closer, taking comfort in the way his arms feel around her, how safe she feels.

"Best birthday present _ever,"_ she mumbles against his mouth, her hand sliding along his jaw, and then freezes when she realizes her mistake.

Bellamy stops too, eyes wide and chest heaving as he stares down at her. "What... birthday present?"

"Yeah, no, nothing," she replies, tugging him back in by the flaps of his jacket. "Not exactly coherent at the moment."

But he pulls back again a moment later, this time with one eyebrow arched up. "Is it your birthday?"

She considers lying but then thinks it wouldn't do her much good. "Yesterday, yeah."

"And you didn't think to tell me?"

"Well," Clarke frowns, watching the way his chest rises and falls beneath his shirt, "it wasn't a big deal and I don't like people fussing over me."

Bellamy groans, rolling his eyes and letting his face fall into her neck. "I like fussing over you."

"Aw!" Clarke runs her fingers through his hair, trying her best not to laugh. "I think that's the sweetest thing you've ever said to me. No, really. Let me grab my calendar so I can write this down-"

She breaks off with a squeal when he lifts her up with his hands beneath her thighs, holding her up against the wall with his hips against hers. "You are ridiculous," he says with a loose grin, his tone so affectionate that it makes her skin buzz, and she kicks her legs around his waist when he leans up to kiss her.


End file.
